


You Light Up the Dark in Me

by Branithar



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), Fallout 4
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25033999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Branithar/pseuds/Branithar
Summary: An honest mistake leads to Luke meeting a small group of absurdly pretty wandering mercenaries. He can't trust them, but he also can't resist Ashton's mysterious allure, so of course he makes a lot of poorly thought out decisions and winds up joining them and getting sucked into their misadventures.
Relationships: Luke Hemmings/Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford/Calum Hood
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	You Light Up the Dark in Me

**Author's Note:**

> It's about damn time I wrote a Fallout AU for 5sos.
> 
> Tags to be updated as I write.
> 
> Title is from Through Glass by Hands Like Houses.

Through tiny holes in the corrugated roof, beams of bright sunlight streamed in, illuminating the dust in the air. Luke could feel spots of light on his arms, burning the bare skin like lasers. He strained against his bindings again, zip ties cutting into his wrists as sweat seeped under them.

If he was being honest, he’d be fine with whatever the fuck was going on right now if only he could itch his face. The dried blood caked around his nose and mouth was almost unbearably irritating. He could go for some water too, but he didn’t want to be greedy.

At the sound of scuffling and angry words, Luke craned his neck to see behind himself. From what he could tell, he was in some kind of warehouse or shed, though he hadn’t yet figured out why. Maybe the people approaching him, two raiders dragging a bound stranger between them, would answer his question. They brought their prisoner in front of Luke and forced him to his knees, one of them yanking his black hair so that he was looking at Luke, eye and lip swollen and bloody.

“Pretty little thing, isn’t he, Hood?” the one not holding the guy down sneered as he approached Luke, pulling out a gun, “Younger than I expected. Just a kid, really. Hope he doesn’t wanna be a Minuteman when he grows up.”

He pressed the gun to Luke’s knee, not even giving him a chance to beg before he pulled the trigger. Luke jumped at the sound, ears ringing a little, but didn’t register the pain until he doubled over as low as the zip ties would allow and saw the hole in his trousers and the blood seeping out. He grunted in surprise, his stomach turning at the feeling of warm blood dripping down the back of his leg. Somehow that was worse than the growing agony.

Through the blood rushing in his ears, Luke noticed that the men were questioning the man, Hood, and realised that this was some kind of interrogation. Someone yanked his hair, forcing him to sit up. He looked at the guy on his knees, Hood, silently begging him to tell them whatever they wanted as he breathed through the pain.

“Fuck you,” Hood bit, “I’m not giving you shit.”

The raider holding Hood’s hair let him go with a shove and moved out of Luke’s view. There was a sound of liquid sloshing in some kind of container, then someone was pouring something clear and pungent over Luke’s face. He squeezed his eyes shut and sputtered against the strong-smelling fluid, stomach giving another horrible twist as he realised that it was gasoline.

His hair was released and he shook his head to get the gasoline out of his face, cringing at the flaring pain in his knee as he agitated the wound.

“ _Please,_ ” Luke choked, though Hood wouldn’t meet his eyes, “Tell them what they wanna know.”

“Yeah, listen to your dear friend Irwin,” a raider sneered, “He’s smart.”

Hood looked up at them in confusion. “He’s not Irwin.”

“Yeah he is.”

Hood gave them a weird look. “No he fucking isn’t. God, I thought this was supposed to be you threatening me with what you were _gonna_ do to me if I didn’t talk, did you seriously think he was Irwin?” His eyes flickered to Luke, but returned to the guy with the gun. “Kill him. I don’t give a shit.”

Luke whimpered, trying not to throw up the last of his dignity despite the pain and noxious fumes. Part of him wanted to laugh at the weird awkwardness of the situation, but most of him desperately didn’t want to die.

“You’re lying,” one of the raiders said, sounding unsure.

Hood huffed a laugh. “You know Irwin’s been at this for over a decade, right? This kid would’ve been in nappies when he started putting fuckers like you down.”

Gun guy stormed to Hood and pressed the gun to his head, but Hood just leaned up to meet it, staring the raider down.

“Do it. You’re getting nothing from me either way.”

The raider looked back at Luke and lowered the gun. “That was a good idea, actually. Everything we do to him is gonna happen to you if you don’t talk.” He strode back to Luke and lifted his boot to press the heel into his ruined knee.

Luke screamed and thrashed, feeling the zip ties cut into his wrists. The feeling of sweat or blood dripping from his fingers wasn’t much of a distraction, but he fixated on it anyway, barely noticing when a boom echoed outside and the pressure disappeared from his knee.

Someone shouted and Luke opened his eyes, taking in the body on the ground and the spray of blood to its left. Hood had shuffled back against the steel wall in front of him, watching something behind Luke with a wide eye.

Luke looked back in time to see a blond stranger in a gas mask fire a laser into the remaining raider’s chest, burning a hole straight through him. The stranger seemed to not even see Luke as he strode to Hood, loosening the straps of his mask and pulling it off.

“ _Michael,_ ” Hood breathed in relief as he shifted to give the guy access to his zip tied wrists.

 _Michael_ cut the ties and tried to examine Hood’s bruised face, but Hood threw his arms around him and pulled him close.

“I thought they were gonna kill me,” he said softly into Michael’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” Michael murmured, “We should’ve been here sooner, I’m so sorry it took this long to find you.”

Hood opened his eye and pulled away from Michael, looking at Luke. “He needs a stimpak. They shot him in the knee.”

Michael frowned at Luke. “Who is he?”

Hood shook his head. “They thought he was Ashton. I don’t think he’s anyone.”

Rummaging through one of the pockets on his baggy trousers, Michael stood and went to Luke. “Can you stretch your leg out for me?”

Luke shook his head, flinching as Michael grabbed a handful of gasoline soaked material on his injured leg to cut a hole in his trousers. He wiped at his exposed thigh with his sleeve, cleaning a spot for the stimpak he'd brought out.

“Calum?”

Hood made to grab Luke’s ankle, but hesitated. “Here.” He unbuckled his belt and slid it out of the loops, folding it over and holding it to Luke’s face. “Bite this.”

Luke obeyed, gripping the leather tightly as Calum lifted his leg and pain shot through it. Michael jabbed the stimpak into his thigh, ice blooming in the spot as fire flared in his knee. He groaned into the belt, his breaths coming out fast and heavy as the damaged bone and tissue healed.

Someone cut the zip ties around his wrists and he spat the belt out, stumbling from the chair to throw up against the wall.

“He walks!” Michael celebrated halfheartedly, “It’s a miracle!”

Luke tensed at the feel of someone’s hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” Hood said lowly.

Luke wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and cleared his throat, grimacing at the acidic burn. “They were gonna burn me alive,” he mumbled hoarsely, pressing his forehead to the wall, “You were gonna let them.”

“I’m sorry,” Hood repeated.

“We should get Ash and go,” Michael interrupted, “Before someone else comes.”

Luke looked back at him, at the belt he was holding out to Hood. “You gonna leave me here?”

Michael frowned. “Of course not. We’re gonna get you home.”

Hood took his belt back and putting it on again. “Least we can do,” he said with a shrug. He pulled Michael in for a kiss and then they headed out, arms around each other.

Conscious of his tender knee, Luke grabbed the raider’s gun and followed slowly, not sure if he wanted to trust them, but not sure if he had much of a choice. He didn’t want to try to get back to his camp alone and almost unarmed. The gun didn’t have a lot of ammo left and would probably be pretty fucking useless against anything bigger than a human. Maybe he could lead them about halfway there and ditch them before they ate him or something.

In the bright sunlight outside, they met a strikingly attractive, curly-haired man with some kind of case strapped to his back. While Hood and Michael looked close to Luke’s own age, this guy looked older, probably approaching his thirties.

“Who’s this?” he asked, eyes on Luke.

“He’s, uh…” Calum looked at Luke.

“Luke,” Luke offered.

“They thought he was you,” Hood explained to the man. Irwin, Luke guessed from that. “Shot his knee trying to get me to talk. Michael gave him a stimpak.”

Irwin’s eyes wandered down to the wet blood on Luke’s trouser leg and Luke tried not to squirm under his analytical gaze, telling himself very firmly that he wasn’t checking him out. He couldn’t help the thought, Irwin was undeniably handsome and had a magnetically dangerous air about him and Luke had a type, unfortunately.

“Sorry for the confusion,” Irwin said, his eyes returning to Luke’s, “Your knee okay now?”

“’S fine,” Luke mumbled, feeling like he was acting like a stupid teenager. In his defense, he still wasn't sure if these people were interested in turning him into a delicious roast and he was just a shy, lonely twenty-something year old, just a kid, really, like that raider said, so he totally had every right to be nervous.

“Whereabouts are we heading?” Michael asked Luke, “To get you home.”

“Um…” Luke looked around, squinting against the sunlight. The raiders had put a bag over his head when they kidnapped him that morning, so he couldn’t say for sure where they were. None of the buildings around them were at all familiar.

“How about you come back to our camp for a while?” Ashton suggested, “Have some food while you get your bearings.”

Luke glanced at him, at the tank top clinging to his body, at the sweat glittering on his bare shoulders, at his surprisingly well-fitted trousers that showed off the shape of his legs a little too well and cursed himself for his complete inability to not think with his dick.

“Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I run tran5rightsos on Tumblr! Feel free to send asks about this or any of my other 5sos fics!
> 
> Comments are always welcome.


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